[MUD-Dev] Totally OT... (Or is it?) (yes it is ;)

[Jon A. Lambert]

On  7 Jan 98 at 17:20, Ola Fosheim Gr=B0stad wrote:
> Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl> wrote:
> >I am sure that it is possible to find something that (almost) everybody
> >can agree on.  However it is practically impossible  for the players to
> >enforce anything.  They have no control over the game, or the way it is
> >working. Only the people who do the coding and the people who make sure
> >it is running can do anything about enforcing things. I think they have
> >to provide safeguards against admin abuse of private information, but I
> >see no way how the players can enforce that.
> 
> I never expected the majority on the list to agree with me, simply
> because the list is heavly biased.  Actually I knew the attitudes in
> advance. I am not going to bring up all the arguments though, because
> that would involve a lot of theory, philosophy and deductions.
> Unfortunatly the attitudes are heavly colored by Taylorism (scientific
> management guy) and the belief that ownership of a system implies a
> right to control the people acting within the system.  Spoke to a
> norwegian friend working in the US today, he confirmed my observation
> (along with american professionals' observation), the attitude is that
> the employer "owns" the employee much more there than over here. (I
> know this is different in some game houses)

I think these attitudes stretch even further back, well back to the 
days of the Magna Carta.  It's no accident that lines of employer/employee=
 
responsibilities and rights have evolved along similar lines in both the U=
K 
and US.  There is strong resistance in the US in adopting the sorts of 
"rights" workers enjoy in many european countries.  Many forms of socialis=
m 
are very much under attack here.  IMO, this is a good thing. :)  

A good design under your terms would not allow the administrators to shut
it down over the objections of the playerbase.  That would be immoral
since the administrator would be violating user ownership???  Sort of
like forcibly taking their lands and burning their castles.

> Anyway, the issue is not what users should or can enforce, but first
> and foremost: What is a good design?  Second: exessive logging is
> immoral, in my view, independant of what shade of western culture you
> live in.

I still believe that act of logging is morally neutral.  It causes no
harm to any individual.  Can you point to any example where this is so, 
even a hypothetical?  How the information is used _is_ morally relevant no=
t 
the obtaining of it. 

> The cognitive psychologist Norman calls most people's view of how the
> human mind works for "folk psychology".  "folk psychology" is in the
> best case misleading or incomplete, I am tempted to say: wrong.
>

Most psychologists neither respect dualism of mind and body nor moral 
intuitionism.  They are wrong and ignorant on both accounts.  I can only 
respect the domain of psychology in the area of genetic and physiological 
mental dysfunction of the individual.  Societal dysfunction is a question 
of morality and ethics and belongs to the realm of philosophy.

> I guess this along with the natural "it is my system, I don't want to
> be made responsible for what I do with it" is causing the current
> position.

I would suggest that the decision to log indicates an strong desire of the=
 
designer to accept moral and ethical responsibility for how the system is 
used.  If one did not feel responsible for what occurs within their system=
 
then they woudn't bother to log.  From what your saying, every general 
ledger, purchasing and banking system that I've encountered could be 
termed, morally, a bad design.

> That aside, it is the owner's (ultimatly "owner of the company")
> responsibility to make sure (enforce) that his system's moral is both
> legal and user friendly.

Logging is certainly a good enforcement of users' morals.  It also ensures=
 
user's behave both legally and are user-friendly users.  Users have  
responsibilty to behaive in a legal and moral manner. To not log, therfore=
 
would be immoral.  It would be an obviation of a designer's moral 
responsibilty to ensure the protection of the systems users.  :P 

--
Jon A. Lambert
"Everything that deceives may be said to enchant" - Plato